Scorpion Demoness
Scorpion Demoness (Chinese: 蝎子精, pinyin: xiē zǐ jīng) is a demon from the Chinese novel Journey to the West. Her true form is a scorpion with the size of a pipa* [http://www.chine-informations.com/fichiers/jourwest.pdf Journey to the West]. When Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) and his disciples are about to leave the Women's Kingdom (西梁女国), scorpion demoness suddenly appears and abducts Sanzang to her cave. She tries to seduce and persuade Sanzang to marry her, but fails and is killed by the Sun Deity of Mao (昴日星官) in the end. Plot Tang Sanzang and his disciples arrives at the Women's Kingdom. The Queen of Women's Kingdom (女儿国国王) learns from her official that Sanzang is the oath brother of Tang Empire's emperor and decides to marry him even though she haven't met him yet. Sanzang and his disciples are afraid of being grounded by the queen after hearing the proposal. They make the plan to accept it first and escape when Sanzang and the queen send the disciples out of the kingdom. They are about to leave the kingdom according to their plan, but the scorpion demoness suddenly appears from the roadside and takes Sanzang away by making a whirlwind. Back to her home, which is a cave called Pipa Cave in Venom Mountain (毒敌山琵琶洞), scorpion demoness comforts Sanzang with food and persuades him to become her husband. Fearing of being murdered by the demoness, Sanzang talks with her, accepts the momo (a type of steamed roll) she passed to him and passes another one to her in return. Sanzang's disciple Sun Wukong (孙悟空) has arrived for a while and transformed into a bee to monitor on his master. As scorpion demoness and Sanzang's conversation appears more and more playful, Wukong starts worrying that his master could succumb to the attractive demoness. As a result, Wukong shows his true form to stop their conversation and orders the demoness to release his master. Scorpion demoness, irritated by the interruption, uses her magic power to breathe out smokes from her mouth and prevents Sun Wukong from seeing her. She calls her servants to shut Sanzang away, and then brings out a trident to fight with Wukong. They fight out of the cave, where Zhu Bajie (猪八戒) joins Wukong to fight against scorpion demoness. The three of them fight for a long time and neither of them can beat their opponent. Suddenly, the demoness uses her poisonous tail to sting on Wukong's head. Unable to avoid the sting, Wukong gets severe headache from it and escapes with Bajie. Scorpion demoness then gets back to her cave and asks her servants to bring out Sanzang so that she can make love with him. She appears to be extremely charming in front of Sanzang, and takes him by hand to the bridal suite she prepared for their marriage. There she entices Sanzang with all types of methods. She takes off clothes to show her breathtaking beauty and teases Sanzang with seductive language. Despite of huge temptation from the gorgerous demoness, Sanzang rejects to make love with her. The struggle goes on till the middle of the night, when scorpion demoness is finally angered by Sanzang's stubbornness. Even though she deeply loves him, the demoness orders her servants to tie Sanzang with rope and then sleeps by herself. The next day, Sun Wukong comes back and learns that his master didn't lose his chastity. He then destroys the gate of Pipa Cave with Bajie and start to fight against the demoness again. The demoness uses her poisonous tail once more and stings on Bajie's lip this time. Bajie escapes with great pain, and Wukong, who is still a little bit frightened by the demoness, follows Bajie to run away. At this moment, Guanyin Bodhisattva (观音菩萨) appears and tells disciples to find the Sun Deity of Mao (昴日星官) to subdue the demoness. Sun Wukong brings Sun Deity of Mao from Heaven's Palace to Pipa Cave and destroys the inner door of the cave with Bajie. The demoness, who is serving Sanzang with vegetarian food after untying him, comes out to fight with the disciples again. The Sun Deity of Mao then shows his true form, a giant rooster, and crows at scorpion demoness. The demoness immediately reverts to her true form under the crow, which is a scorpion with size of a pipa. The Sun Deity crows again, and the demoness' whole body finally crumbles in death. Character Features Appearance In Journey to the West, scorpion demoness is regarded as the demon that represents men's lust for women, which explains her great beauty and charm. There are not a lot of words that directly describes how she looks besides generally tells she's extremely attractive. The author, however, depicts her body as "smooth and fragrant" and calls Sanzang's skin "rough" when compared to the demoness'. Sanzang is usually illustrated as a superbly good-looking monk with finest body and skin in Journey to the West. It kind of shows us how gorgerous scorpion demoness is. Magic Power Besides great fighting skills, scorpion demoness knows all types of magic powers. She also has her unique magic called "Horse-Killer Poison" (倒马毒), which is the name of the poisonous sting on her tail. All these skills make her one of the most powerful demons in Journey to the West. Fighting skill The female demons in Journey to the West are usually weak in fighting skills compare to male ones, but this is not the case in scorpion demoness. It is mentioned in the book that Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie fight against the demoness together for a long time but cannot beat her. There are not a lot of characters in the book that Sun Wukong cannot defeat by himself, let alone adding Zhu Bajie's power. Thus, with the trident made from her own claws as weapon, scorpion demoness' fighting skill is definitely among the top tier. Magic Besides using whirlwind to abducts Sanzang, scorpion demoness is great at using smoke and fire. She can breathe out smoke from her mouth and fire from her nostrils, which she uses frequently when fighting with Wukong and Bajie. It is also told that she can appear to have "endless hands" during a fight. This skill enables her to fight against multiple people at the same time. Horse-Killer Poison (倒马毒) The "Horse-Killer poison" is the name of the stinger on scorpion demoness' tail. It is her unique magic and is extremely powerful.When she uses her tails to attack someone, it is so fast that the attacked person won't be able to see what stung them. She uses her tail to hurt Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and even Gautama Buddha (如来佛祖). It is the only time that Sun Wukong and the Buddha gets injured by someone in Journey to the West, since their bodies are as hard as metals. Nemesis In Journey to the West, it uses Twenty-Eight Mansions to represent food chain of the nature. Since scorpion demoness belongs to bugs, the Sun Deity of Mao, who is a rooster, naturally overpowers her. Even though she owns great magic powers, she also cannot escape from the rule of nature. Relationship with Buddhism It is never told in the book where scorpion demoness comes from.The author tells through Guanyin Bodhisattva that she used to listen to the Buddha preaching at Thunder Monastery (雷音寺).The Buddha notices her and mistakenly pushes her away with his hands. Scorpion demoness uses her tail to sting on the Buddha's left middle finger and causes the Buddha great pain. The Buddha then asks Jingangs(金刚) to arrest her, which explains why scorpion demoness comes to Pipa Cave from the Vulture Peak (灵山). The author does not explain why the demoness was listening to the Buddha preaching, but she kind of shows her interest in Buddhism when she introduces her place to Sanzang, in which she says that even though her cave "may not be as rich and splendid as the palace in the Women's Kingdom, it is peaceful and comfortable, and an ideal place for reciting the Buddha's name and reading the scriptures". Love to Sanzang There are several female characters who want to marry Sanzang on his journey to the west, few of them really love the monk as a person. For instance, the Queen of the Women's Kingdom wants to marry Sanzang even before she meets him because of Sanzang's identity as oath brother of Tang Empire's emperor. The rat demoness (金鼻白毛老鼠精) and the jade rabbit demoness (玉兔精) all longs to mate with Sanzang so that they can "absorb his true masculine primal essence (元阳)" to become a golden immortal(太乙金仙). Scorpion demoness, however, really loves Sanzang. She proposes to Sanzang that she can be his companion in spiritual exercise as his wife. In this way, they can "live in harmony for hundreds of years". It can also be shown from the fact that after luring Sanzang for the whole night and still cannot persuade him to become her husband, scorpion demoness doesn't force Sanzang to make love with her. She can easily do so with her power, but apparently what she pursues is Sanzang's real love. Sanzang seems to feel her difference from other demons in the end. Sanzang always asks his disciples how they defeat the demon after he is saved, but in scorpion demoness' case, he asked them "what happened to that woman" instead of calling her "demon" . Media Adaptations Gallery 15.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) Yunjuan Li(8).jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 1.jpeg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 34.JPG|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) Yunjuan Li(9).jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) Yunjuan Li(10).jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 23.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) Scorpion Demoness(Yunjuan Li).jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 22.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 37.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 36.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Li Yunjuan) 1.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 2.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 3.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 4.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 5.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 6.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 7.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 8.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 9.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 10.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 11.jpg|Scorpion Demoness (played by Zhao Wenqi) 98.jpg|Scorpion Demoness fighting against Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie (Drew by Chen HuiGuan) 99.jpg|Scorpion Demoness enticing Sanzang in bridal suite (Drew by Chen Huiguan) 原稿（1）.jpg|Scorpion Demoness abducting Sanzang away (Drew by Li Xiang) 原稿（2）.jpg|Scorpion Demoness calling servants to bring out Sanzang (Drew by Li Xiang) 原稿（3）.jpg|Scorpion Demoness tempting Sanzang (Drew by Li Xiang) 原稿（5）.jpg|Scorpion Demoness killed by the Sun Deity of Mao (Drew by Li Xiang) Reference Category:Characters